Feral animals and scientific ideology

[Guest guest]

>A lot of respect that is earned by the biodiversity conservation

>movement today is largely due to Wilson's efforts

 

 

As I previously pointed out, persuasive success amid a

socio-political climate predisposed to accept the message is not to

be confused with having valid ideas, or an accurate understanding of

anything.

 

I previously compared E.O. Wilson to William Jennings Bryan,

the " Great Orator " who for a generation was among the best-respected

and most influential politicians in the U.S.

 

Like Wilson, Bryan persuasively advanced doctrines in the

latter part of his life which were in essence counter-Darwinian.

 

Bryan's admirers, at his demise in 1925, soon after the

infamous John T. Scopes " Tennessee Monkey Trial, " wrote praise of

him sounding much like the praise heaped on Wilson.

 

In fact, Bryan was fairly astute about several things,

notably his early opposition to U.S. imperialism, but that message

got lost because it was not in tune with the times. By contrast,

his anti-evolutionary message was politically praised and enshrined

in public policy all over the country because it was what people

wanted to hear.

 

The popularity of Bryan's position against evolution did not

make it intelligent, or wise, or scientifically well-founded.

 

The same will eventually be seen of Wilson. His fundamental

premises are grounded in theology, not science, and warping science

to match theology doesn't work any better now than when the Vatican

tried to refute Galileo.

 

 

 

> *Wilson's book Sociobiology: The New Synthesis was rated as

>the most important book on animal behaviour ever published by the Animal

>Behaviour Society in 1989.

 

The same has been said of quite a few books since.

 

The real importance of Sociobiology was simply that it gave

conservatives a new-sounding theory with which to justify the notions

previously supported by " social Darwinism " and Calvinism, which had

fallen out of political favor.

 

 

 

>He certainly did not receive his doctorate from a university like

>Harvard in zoology if he was not an expert in studying animals.

 

There is a reason why I call a Ph.D. a " Piled Higher & Deeper. "

 

The Ph.D. system is the lingering academic vestige of the

process of educating priest, bishop, cardinal, in a structure

organized chiefly to preserve canon, while attempting to control

progress by controlling education and discovery.

 

What a Ph.D. means is that a person has channelized and

compartmentalized learning & research within a particular structure.

 

It denotes acculturation, not originality, insight, or wisdom.

 

A Ph.D. can develop originality, insight, and wisdom, the

same as anyone else, but all the degree really means is that the

holder has endured a particular acculturation process that isn't

really much more meaningful in itself than boot camp.

 

 

 

>*Edward Wilson has vehemently denied any extraneous philosophical

>influence in his scientific work.

 

The infamous emperor who strutted around stark naked thought

he was wearing a fine suit of invisible clothing.

 

 

 

 

--

Merritt Clifton

Editor, ANIMAL PEOPLE

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